missed the matter with the laconic reply, 'After the war, my boy, after the war.' The expression 'After the war,' was as old as the first trek of the Boers northward from the Cape Colony. It came in very handy in the common affairs of life. For want of a better expression or excuse, domestic arrangements, building operations, or perhaps hunting trips and such like, year in and year out, were being postponed until after the war.' In this way its absolute certainty was forever kept in the minds of the people. It was a sort of perpetual echo that had floated down the years from that never-to-be-forgotten day at Slaghters Nek in the Free State, when a number of Boer prisoners had been strung up like criminals, and their wives had been dragged to the scene to witness the execution, as a lesson, it was said, to future generations. Among children the words must have filtered into the blood somehow. One day I asked a little mite of a patriot to run on an errand for me. He said he thought his mother might not approve of his doing so. Personally, however, he did n't object, and while he would n't do it just then, he hoped to be able to earn a few pennies from the 'red-necks' in this way, ‘after the war.'

However, Prinsloo and I stepped into the house and found therein quite a company of young Boers, sipping coffee and smoking their pipes. I understood in an instant that important business was being discussed, and it did not take Prinsloo long to enlighten me. I had barely taken my seat, when out it came, straight from the shoulder, somewhat in this way:

'Look here, young man,' he began, 'some of these fellows say they like you; they think you are to be trusted. At any rate, when you sell us anything we usually get what we bargain for, which is no small recommendation.

But what I have to tell you now is that affairs in our country have just about come to a head, and as you have seen a good deal and know a good deal about our cause in this district, you must now get out on five minutes' notice, or swear in, do you understand? Swearing in,' he continued, 'does n't mean that you will be commanded to fight for us, but simply that you must come under the Boer rule: keep your mouth shut, and help us in any other way you may choose.'

Under these conditions it didn't take me long to 'swear in.'

That same night there was a big gathering of Boers in that neighborhood. It was nearly midnight when they separated. On the following day a column of redcoats on the main wagon-road to Pretoria was attacked at Bronkhurst Sprint by Boers coming from nearly every direction. The British force was practically annihilated. Even old man Prinsloo was satisfied. This was the beginning of the first Boer struggle for independence in 1880.

The next is a scene from Kaffirland. I make no apologies for my defense of the Kaffirs. My admiration for these people at that time is easily understood. The original human stamp was there, and you could study its manifestations to your heart's desire. I confess that I was ignorant at the time, and lacking in social experience; nevertheless, I was mentally at war with the artificialities and barbarities of civilization, and I found much in these unadulterated Kaffirs to renew my faith in human effort and human sympathies.

Some time before Sir Garnet Wolseley appeared upon the scene and burned their villages, dynamited their caves, and, with the help of his Zwasi allies, massacred the population, I was one day swapping salt for Kaffir corn at the 'stadt' or town of a powerful chief

of the Maccatees. His name, I think, was Mampoor. As this was the third or fourth visit I had made to this Kraal, I had the run of the place, and was on friendly terms with the chief. On the occasion I am now trying to describe he was seated, or rather squatting, in front of his hut. He was one of the finest looking specimens I ever saw of what was called a refugee Zulu Kaffir, tall, light-skinned, stalwart, and heavily fleshed. He knew how to combine business with pleasure by methods unheard of in civilized circles. At his side, jabbering incessantly, was a buxom intombi or maiden. She was next in order as his bride elect. Once in a while the huge frame of the chief quivered and gave a sort of a chuckle as he happened to catch and enjoy one of her flattering remarks. But his attention, for the most part, was concentrated on the eloquence of three or four old men, minor chiefs or indunas, who were squatting on the ground in front of him.

These old men were trying to persuade the chief to provide an extra ox or two for the grand ceremony that was to take place in the afternoon. It is the picture of this ceremony, with its lessons of courage, endurance, and loyalty, that I wish now to describe, to account in a measure for the fascination which, I confess, Kaffir life had for me at the time.

In the centre of the town was a sort of common, or large enclosure. At the time I entered, inside the palisades, in a dense ring round the edges, the whole population of the town was massed. In a reserved centre space, a huge sacrificial ox stood at bay within a ring of glittering assegais. Squatted on the ground at a short distance from the nose of the animal was the royal butcher, horribly painted and befeathered. He was addressing the animal and telling him, in fitful screams, just what he

was going to do to him later on, and once in a while the butcher changed his tone to a whine, and implored his victim, when he felt the tickle of the assegai in his heart, not to get excited about it, but to take his time and to fall in such and such a way, with nose upturned to the wide sky, in order that the omens might be lucky, and the flesh untainted.

And just then, amid a terrific din of kettledrums and the shouts of thousands, the boys themselves, glittering and handsome, brandishing their first spears and shields, entered the arena in long procession. The feast was in their honor. Their young hearts were filled with joy and triumph. The period of trial and purification was over. For a whole moon period they had been out among the rocks on the mountain side, for the most part hungry and thirsty and blanketless. Their taskmasters had never let up on them for one minute. They had been drilled and buffeted, hammered with knobkerries and pricked with assegais and hardened up to the very acme of daring and endurance. They were now to enter manhood, and nothing remained but the triumph and the feasting. One after another these war-bedecked young warriors jumped out of the procession into the arena and with frantic gestures and marvelous limb-play told the assembly, in passionate language, just what it is to be manly and dexterous and stout-hearted. Each one in turn was applauded.

The young girls, here and there in bunches, were jabbering incessantly and bubbling over with delight, while a number of old hags, doubled up, dried up, crooked beyond conception, and crazy with excitement, ambled around the arena in weird and trance-like gyrations. Then suddenly the centre space was cleared of everything but the ox and the dancing butcher. The

assegai flashed in the sunlight, and the feast was on.

For reasons, then, which may or may not be apparent to my readers, I was in sympathy with those dissatisfied Boers and those heathenish Kaffirs. In my ignorance of or dissatisfaction with society, I suppose I failed to appreciate the forced relationship that, practically speaking, existed and exists between profession and expediency. My mind, at the time, was honestly crammed with precepts, proverbs, texts, and old saws about liberty, the pursuit of happiness, human rights and property rights; and with these fundamentals forever buzzing in my brain, I could not, for the life of me, account for the conduct of Europeans in Africa. From my point of view then, with Christianity as a background, the excuse for the African wars was reduced to the simple objections of the ordinary traveler, that the Kaffir, as a rule, lacked soap, and the Boer, as a rule, forgot to shave.

It was at this stage of my mental and physical experience in Africa that I met a certain individual, and immediately my whole line of thought and interest was changed; and as the result, within eight months I landed on American soil. It was just after the capture of the Kaffir chief, Sekukuni, by Sir Garnet Wolseley and his native allies, the Zwasis, in 1879, I think.

I was crossing the high veldt at the time, on the way from Leydenburg to Heidelburg. The journey itself was very interesting for other reasons, which cannot well be omitted from my narrative. A few miles out of Leydenburg, the wagon-road winds up the face of a precipitous mountain. With any thing but a clever span of oxen, the asrent was long drawn out and extremely difficult. One morning, on account of a break in the wagon-gear, I was compelled to outspan some distance from

the summit of the hill. Shortly after the sun had cleared the mountain-tops, the blanket of mist in the long valley below quickly evaporated, and exposed to view a remarkable scene.

A straggling column of Zwasi Kaffirs, about five thousand in number, came out of the mist and began to ascend the hill. They were returning from the country of their hereditary enemies the Maccatees, where they had been helping the British to burn and sack their principal town. Here and there could be seen small bunches of captured cattle and women, and bringing up the rear was a long string of the wounded. Efforts had been made in Leydenburg to provide treatment for some of them in the hospitals; but what was the use? When the main body arrived and marched, chanting and jabbering, through the streets, the patients tore off the bandages and were soon hobbling along in the rear of the procession. Later, when these unfortunates passed my wagon, instead of bandages there were patches of clay, and in some of the more jagged wounds made by potlegs and such missiles, which had been utilized instead of bullets, there were plugs of twisted grass. Recovery for these stout-hearted warriors was a foregone conclusion.

It was on this occasion that I had the singular fortune again to meet Peixoto. Like many other adventurers, he had taken service and in the course of time had become naturalized among the Zwasis. His account of the campaign in Sekukuni's country was particularly interesting in relation to the development of his own character. It seems he, with a troop of his Zwasi warriors, had been left behind for a day or two to patrol the mountains after the caves had been dynamited by the British. He affirmed, with savage glee, that when he came away from the place, by placing his ear to the ground

he could still hear dogs barking and children crying down below in the sealed-up caves. He was glad, he said, he was not a Christian; the Kaffir and Kaffir life were good enough for him. However, I continued my journey, and one evening was comfortably outspanned on the high veldt when a large cape cart, drawn by four horses, came along and made preparations to camp alongside our wagons for the night. I happened to have two or three very tame chickens which were eating out of my hand and perching at times on my shoulders. Very soon an elderly man, one of a group which had arrived with the cape cart, caught sight of the chickens and came over to my wagon gayly clapping his hands. With chickens as a point of contact, a conversation ensued that was prolonged into the night and continued with unabated interest the following morning. I told the man a good deal about myself, my plans and my philosophy; and one thing leading to another, he happened to strike into the subject of Democracy and the United States. To me, at the time, it was absolutely a new world of thought. Before I met this man, had any one asked me to define a Republican, very

probably I should have replied that he was a horrid sort of a demagogue or disturber of society like Charles Bradlaugh, who, on five minutes' notice, would, perhaps, have shipped Queen Victoria to Botany Bay.

As I call to mind our conversation, however, this man had a number of serious criticisms to make of the tendencies of democratic government in the United States. Nevertheless, he drew, for my benefit, a brilliant picture of its principles and possibilities, and before his analysis was finished, my interest and enthusiasm in the matter were aroused to the highest pitch. Finally he gave me a good deal of inside history in regard to affairs, and consequently in regard to my own prospects, in Africa, for a number of years to come, and he strongly advised me to make the best of my way to the United States.

This man was the celebrated war correspondent known to Americans in particular, as well as to all the world, as 'Bull Run Russell.'

As soon, then, as I was able to dispose of what little stock and interests I owned in the country, I set out on the long trip to America.

THIS is not an essay in criticism. It is an argument from example; containing also the personal observations of an unabashed æsthetician, who takes her own where she finds it. A living organism of industry, all compact of social values, may be truly an æsthetic whole. It may have beauty transcending a multitude of partial uglinesses, not because it is good, but because its excellence shows the form of perfect unity. That harmony of potent action, that blending of mutual influences, which, in symphony or drama, makes it difficult to disentangle cause and effect, is an unfailing mark, in the conduct of life no less, of the presence of the æsthetic quality. If all art aspires to the condition of music,' certainly all to which we can ascribe beauty is known by such a fusion of efficient action and results as I mean to try to tell of here. The very difficulty of the task is warrant of the quality of the subject.

It was certainly with no undue expecttations of charm or inspiration that I alighted at Vateria, after a night in which dark phantoms of round-topped Southern pines had marched slowly and continuously by the window of my berth. From Washington down, the journey had revealed untidy houses, idle negroes, unkempt whites. The Southerner of Nicholas Worth was in my literary baggage, and, like a character out of the book, a distinguished Georgian had on the way assured me, 'You know all this hookworm talk is just to keep capital away from the

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South.' And the first aspect of the town held in its unloveliness nothing unforeseen. All about were fields of blackened and ragged stumps, showing where the magnificent pine forests had once stood. The fine new schoolhouses and bank were shouldered by shabby shingled relics of the earlier mushroom growth; and when a yellow cow came strolling along the sidewalk seeking what she might devour, it seemed that the last touch of character had been given. Only the wonderful aromatic fragrance of the cut long-leaf pine, which filled the air, gave intimation of a quality soon to be revealed a truly symbolic note of beauty.

For the place I shall call Vateria is a Mississippi lumber town. It is also one of the most remarkable communities of the New South, in which a strain of power and self-completeness strangely dominates our academic notion of outward civic beauty. There is, indeed, an authentic and virile charm in the spectacle of its common life; but it can be clearly envisaged only in some interpretation of the unusual forces at work there for some twenty years past.

One who knew what other Southern lumber towns were like, ten or more years ago, before the leaven of Vateria had worked throughout the Gulf states, would have earlier discerned its quality. In those days, not yet ended indeed, the lumberman came in only to exploit and to destroy. A saw-mill was built on the railroad, a logging-camp of violent and often vicious men profaned the forest. The country people furnished few

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